Talyra

“Steel protects life. Water preserves it. Wisdom teaches which to use.” — Ancient Karthunai Proverb

Talyra White-Axe was born on Karth Deep, a world of glaciers, volcanic forges, and immense arcologies carved into ancient ice. Survival there depended on engineering, discipline, and the determination to build things that lasted. The White-Axe family had spent generations doing exactly that.

Through White Mane Shockworks, they produced powered armor, environmental systems, industrial equipment, and frontier infrastructure used throughout the Corridor. Talyra’s mother, Thaela White-Axe, led Advanced Materials Research. Her father, Kharv White-Axe, managed logistics and colonial support, while her great-uncle, Elder Vaek White-Axe, served as the company’s majority shareholder and one of Karth Deep’s most influential industrialists.

Everyone expected Talyra to follow them into White Mane. She likely would have, if not for one mystery. As a child she noticed that one member of the family never appeared in portraits. Her grandfather’s name was absent from celebrations, company history, and family stories. Every question she asked was quietly redirected. Years later she began searching on her own.

Corporate records ended abruptly. Archives contained obvious gaps. Eventually she uncovered the only fact no one had managed to erase, decades earlier, her grandfather had left Karth Deep voluntarily and vanished somewhere in the Corridor. No memorial remained; no official search existed. Someone had erased him from history.

Talyra became convinced he had uncovered something powerful enough to be hidden. Whether the truth involved White Mane, Karth Deep, or something far older, she intended to discover it herself.

Like every young Karthunai, Talyra eventually began her Pass Years, leaving home to discover who she was beyond family and corporation. Most returned within a few years, but she chose not to.

Declining both a prestigious position at White Mane and access to her family’s wealth, she set out to earn her own reputation before uncovering the truth behind her grandfather’s disappearance.

Before she departed, Elder Vaek presented her with two gifts commissioned through White Mane’s Special Projects Division, a department responsible for bespoke equipment designed for executives, explorers, military specialists, and members of the White-Axe family.

The first was a custom suit of powered armor optimized for exploration, endurance, and environmental protection. The second was a collapsible spear forged from advanced White Mane alloys.

Together they reminded her that, wherever her Pass Years led, she carried the legacy of her family with her. She has maintained both ever since with meticulous care, refusing unnecessary modifications. To Talyra, they are already masterpieces. Her responsibility is to preserve the craftsmanship they represent.

Her education reached well beyond engineering. Alongside metallurgy, environmental systems, and life-support engineering, she apprenticed under the water shamans of Karth Deep. There she learned that water was more than a resource, it connected every living system.

Like every apprentice, she learned the defensive arts expected of a water shaman, including practical combat magic. Her interests soon specialized elsewhere.

Healing, purification, restoration, and sustaining life fascinated her far more than destructive spells. Whether cleansing contaminated water, restoring damaged ecosystems, or helping the injured recover, she found purpose in preserving life rather than taking it.

Her martial education reflected that same philosophy. Under Master Hroth Varek, she became an accomplished spearfighter and capable quarterstaff practitioner, learning to fight with patience, precision, and restraint. Hroth often remarked that teaching her technique was easy.

Teaching patience was far more difficult.

Talyra dislikes hearing that something cannot be repaired, cannot be grown, or cannot be accomplished. She sees impossible problems as opportunities to learn.

Her Pass Years eventually carried her to the frontier, where isolated colonies constantly struggled with failing infrastructure and fragile ecosystems. She repaired environmental systems, rebuilt hydroponics, restored failing biodomes, and learned from every settlement she visited.

She repaired what she could and learned from what she could not. Before long, stories spread about the tall Karthunai engineer in immaculate White Mane armor whose greatest talent was making dying gardens live again.

The work changed her ambitions. Rather than simply repairing biodomes, she wanted to design them. Every assignment became another lesson as she studied atmospheric regulation, irrigation, structural engineering, hydroponics, and sustainable habitat design. She filled journals with sketches and observations gathered from engineers, botanists, and farmers across the Corridor.

She still refuses to call herself a biodome architect, that title must be earned. One day she hopes to create biodomes capable of transforming even the harshest worlds into thriving homes.

Leaving Karth Deep also meant leaving behind unfinished personal business. Rhevik Torren, heir to another influential industrial family, had long expected Talyra to become his wife. She respected him but never shared his feelings, and she made that clear before leaving.

He refused to accept her answer. Letters became gifts and gifts became investigators quietly asking questions at distant ports. Rhevik still claims he only wants to bring her home. Talyra increasingly believes he simply wants to reclaim something he believes belongs to him.

Despite everything, she has never abandoned her family. If the White-Axes truly needed her, she would return without hesitation. Though reserved and often blunt, those who earn her trust discover someone dependable, compassionate, and fiercely loyal.

Her path finally crossed with the crew of the Verdigris at a busy docking station.

Walking past the ship, she overheard two crewmen arguing about why the biodome was failing. One blamed the circulation pumps. The other insisted the nutrient solution was contaminated.

Talyra looked through the observation window and immediately realized they were both wrong. Without introducing herself, or asking permission, she boarded the ship, opened the environmental controls, recalibrated the airflow system, corrected the humidity sensors, and cleared a partially blocked irrigation line.

By the time anyone questioned who she was, the biodome had already begun recovering.

The invitation to stay came soon afterward.

Aboard the Verdigris, Talyra became the ship’s botanist, environmental specialist, nurse, and caretaker of everything that grew within its biodome. Between missions she continues studying ecological engineering while quietly searching for traces of her grandfather.

When mounting debts threatened the ship’s future, she supported accepting Dermidine Industries’ proposal to test a new theme park. The work sounded unusual, but it would keep the Verdigris flying.

For Talyra, that was reason enough. Today her two ambitions have become inseparable. She intends to design biodomes that allow life to flourish on the galaxy’s harshest worlds. And somewhere beyond the next jump, she intends to uncover why someone erased her grandfather from history.